Melissa,

I encountered a similar situation, in which the deaccessioning had taken
place over a period of about 3 years ---at the hands of an untrained
previous 'curator,'

I concluded that I had to stick strictly to the facts in documention,
without making any suppositions.    Since you can't know for sure
whether a missing item was deaccessioned in this 'mess' or was lost or
stolen previously, I think all you can really say (in a note on the card
or computer record) is that the item "was not found in 1998 inventory."
It sounds like you wisely did this inventory right away, and if you so
note, that will stand as a record of what was not there when you began
your tenure.

You should probably leave a file with a narrative of what you know or
have been able to piece together regarding the 'deaccessioning' (if you
can call it that when no records were kept).  Try to write it clearly,
with fact and supposition clearly differentiated. (No matter how
disgusted you are and how much you'd like to stick it to them.)  That
could assist anyone who found something later (in my case a few things
did turn up later in private hands and were returned).   For instance, I
recorded the rather intriguing fact told to me verbally that under-staff
members (a secretary and curatorial assistant) had devised a system of
innocuous sounding notations on the cards of things they knew had walked
out the door during this period.  The term "withdrawn" was used when the
lender had reclaimed the item --as many did when rumor got around about
what was going on-- (this was from the period when many museums
routinely accepted "permanent" loans), but use of the term "removed"
meant that it had been 'pitched'.  Since the curator involved did no
record keeping, she apparently never caught on, so we were able to at
least know the fate of some of the items. And those hand-written
notations  proved very useful.

This may have created some really awful public relations for your
museum, and it may take you years to 'live it down.'  But it sounds like
you have it well in hand.  Good luck!!

Lucy Skjelstad